A data center may be defined as a location, for instance, a room that houses computer systems arranged in a number of racks. The computer systems typically dissipate relatively significant amounts of heat during the operation of the respective components. For example, a typical computer system comprising multiple microprocessors may dissipate approximately 250 W of power. Thus, a rack containing forty (40) computer systems of this type may dissipate approximately 10 KW of power.
To dissipate the heat generated by the computer systems, data centers are typically equipped with a raised floor with vent tiles configured to provide cool air to the computer systems from a pressurized plenum in the space below the raised floor. These vent tiles often contain manually adjustable dampers for varying the flow rate of cool air there through. However, because these vent tiles typically are not configured for remote controlled operations, they are typically unable to dynamically provision the data center with cooling resources. This may lead to inefficiencies in both cooling of the computer systems as well as in the operations of air conditioning units, which wastes energy and financial resources.
In other instances, automated vent tiles have been used in data centers to generally enable remote actuation of the vent tiles via feedback control algorithms. Conventional automated vent tiles are typically composed of relatively complex and bulky systems, which require a variety of electronic circuitry to control the vent tiles, which are associated with relatively high costs.
An efficient and relatively inexpensive system for controlling the vent tiles to enable relatively accurate airflow delivery is therefore be desirable.